Now healthy, Diana Taurasi sets her sights on 3rd gold medal

Mercury star excited to play for Auriemma, could join exclusive club with London win

by Odeen Domingo - Jul. 21, 2012 05:16 PMThe Republic | azcentral.com

Each swish of the net was met with cheers. But you couldn't blame Mercury fans if all they did was sigh.

Diana Taurasi played her first competitive basketball game last Monday since May 26, making her first three shots, all 3-pointers, with ease. None was close to even grazing the rim.

Taurasi started and totaled 16 points and seven assists in about 24 minutes. But she didn't do it in a Mercury uniform. No, she was playing for the U.S. women's national basketball team as it prepared for the London Olympics.

Taurasi lasted all of 36 minutes of WNBA play because of a strained left-hip flexor. She's had to sit and watch the injury-riddled Mercury enter the WNBA's "Olympic break" at 4-15, the second-worst record in the league.

The question on everyone's mind until recently was would Taurasi be healthy enough to play in the Olympics in search for a third gold medal? But as she has shown in Team USA's recent tuneup games, barring a setback, Taurasi likely will be an Olympics star once again.

She hopes so, after a seven-week rehabilitation process that had a goal of being 100 percent healthy for the first time in "a long time."

"I didn't rush," Taurasi said before she left Phoenix to join Team USA. "Because usually when I've rushed, I reinjured myself. And if there's one year where it wouldn't be smart to rush and reinjure yourself, it's this year, with the Olympics ahead."

Taurasi won gold medals in the 2004 and 2008 Summer Games. She will enter elite company if she wins a third Olympic gold medal in a traditional team sport.

But that's not what Taurasi is looking forward to the most. Right now, nothing compares to the opportunity to play under her former coach at the University of Connecticut, and longtime friend, Geno Auriemma.

"That, to me, is worth more than any gold medal," said Taurasi, 30 and an eight-year WNBA veteran, all with the Mercury. "Just to be able to do this with him. ... amazing."

Auriemma has been a coach, teacher, friend and mentor to Taurasi since he recruited her out of Don Antonio Lugo High in Chino, Calif. Taurasi said Auriemma helped shape her into who she was -- a three-time NCAA champion -- and is today: considered by many to be the best player in the world.

Though there may be higher priorities on Taurasi's mind at the moment, the prestige of winning a third Olympic gold medal in a team sport isn't lost on her. She, as well as Olympic teammates Sue Bird and Tamika Catchings, can join the likes of Teresa Edwards, Lisa Leslie, Dawn Staley and Sheryl Swoopes as players with three or more Summer Olympic golds. (Edwards and Leslie are the only female athletes in history with four Summer Olympic gold medals in a team sport.)

"Rarely in team sports that you get to that number," Taurasi said.

Gold rush

Athletes who have won three or more gold medals in traditional team sports in the Summer Olympics.